The Pirate of Panama Part 26

"There's not much danger yet, and I must keep in touch with our friends forward. Don't you think we had better get your patient to bed?"

"I'm all right, sir," Dugan spoke up faintly.

"He ought to be kept quiet for a day or two," his young nurse decided.

"I'll take him down to my cabin. Perhaps you can get him something to put him to sleep, Miss Wallace."

Miss Berry came up the stairs just as we were starting down. She looked like a ghost.

"Mr. Sedgwick, I've just been wakened from a nap. I heard some one groaning in the cabin next to mine." She caught sight of Dugan's bandaged head and cried out: "What's the matter? Has something happened?"

"Don't be frightened, Miss Berry."

"What are these men doing with pistols? Where does that blood come from?"

Evelyn came forward and took her aunt in her arms.

"Dearie, we can trust Captain Blythe and Mr. Sedgwick. We mustn't make it harder for them. Just now they are very busy."

I looked my thanks.

Williams and Jimmie returned from the armory. Morgan and Philips were at their heels. The steward looked very yellow.

"Let me know if there is any sign of trouble. I'll be back presently," I told Alderson.

Having put Dugan to bed in my room, I stepped into the one where we had been keeping our prisoner. Mott lay on the floor, his body still warm, quite dead. I judged that he had expired within the past few minutes.

He had been struck with some blunt instrument and then knifed. The man had paid for his obstinate disbelief with his life.

I lifted the body to the bed, locked the door, and returned to the promenade deck saloon. For the throb of the propeller had ceased. An immediate attack was probably impending.

Miss Berry was sobbing softly in the arms of her niece. In my absence we had gained another adherent. Billie Blue, the cook's flunky, had come up from below.

"Where is Higgins?" I asked.

"Don't know, sir. He left right after lunch."

Alderson, who had been craning out of the door, drew back his head to speak.

"They're coming, sir."

"Down to your cabin, ladies. You go with them, Jimmie. Lock yourselves in," I ordered.

Evelyn's white lips tried to frame some words as she pa.s.sed me. I understood what she wanted to say.

"I'll be careful," I promised.

"I have no weapon, sir," Billie Blue told me.

I had brought up with me from below a repeating rifle, so I handed him one of my revolvers and an Italian dirk that had been hanging on the wall as an ornament.

The second door I ordered locked. Putting my head out of one of the windows I counted the enemy as they stood grouped near the stairway from the main deck. Bothwell was in the lead, followed by Caine. At their heels trooped both engineers, the three firemen, the cook, Johnson, Mack, Gallagher, Dennis, Smith, and Neidlinger. It was not easy to count them, because they shifted to and fro, but I was almost sure they were fourteen. The boatswain carried in his hand a towel, which he was waving.

"Crew to have a conference with you, Cap'n Blythe," he called out.

"I hold no conference with armed mutineers," Blythe called back sternly.

He was standing in the wheelhouse, rifle in hand. Beside him was the curly head of Tom Yeager.

"This here ship's company offers to do the square thing, share and share alike, cap'n," boomed out the boatswain. "We wants a bit of that there treasure, and by Moses! we're going to have it. But we don't want no bloodshed, cap'n."

"Then get back to duty in a hurry, my man!"

George Fleming spoke up.

"Give us that map and we'll put your party ash.o.r.e safe, sir."

"I'll see you hung up to dry at my yardarm first! If you want the ship come and take it, you scurvy scoundrel!"

It looked like long odds--fourteen to two. I began to wonder if Bothwell had forgotten us, and I ordered Alderson to unlock the door for a sortie if one should be necessary.

Even while I was speaking the rush came. They divided like running water when it reaches a big rock in midstream. Some of them poured toward us, the rest made for the bridge. I heard the crack of Sam's rifle, the rattle of small arms, and then the battle was upon us.

CHAPTER XIV

THE BATTLE

I fired through the window and brought down one fellow while they were still coming in a huddle toward us. Before I could fire again they were in the saloon and at close quarters with us.

To me it seemed that a hundred men were struggling in that narrow, smoke-filled s.p.a.ce. A grimy, black-faced stoker leaped at me and I fired.

I remember beating him over the head with my revolver and that we went down together in a clinch.

As I was falling it came over me that the attack was only a feint to keep us busy. The main body of the mutineers was storming the wheelhouse.

When I clambered to my feet I found that our attackers had been routed.

Billie Blue's dirk had put a temporary quietus on my stoker, and the rest had fled as quickly as they had come.

"This way!" I shouted, and was out of the door in a jiffy.

A swarm of men were racing up the steps that led to the bridge and the pilot house. One lay with arms outstretched, face down on the deck.

Another was sliding down the rail of the steps, his face writhing with pain.

Our friends were hard pressed. Blythe was keeping the door against a mob, while Yeager was firing through the window. Twice I saw the captain's cutlas flash. Then I lost sight of him and I knew that Bothwell had forced the entrance.

At the same instant the Arizonian disappeared from the opening which he had been using as a porthole. I knew that Sam was down and that his friend had gone to his a.s.sistance. My flank attack must have come as a surprise. The mutineers turned, finding themselves between two fires. We crowded in on them, and for a time the jam was so thick that none of us could do much damage.